Springboard

Last week I was speaking with Helen, the General Manager of a residential home for older people I have come to know quite well. We were talking about the upcoming Christmas period and how some of her residents no longer have family or friends that can come to visit them. Here’s what she told me, pretty much as she said it. “I’ve been encouraging the staff to come up with ideas for new ways we can entertain and motivate our residents. We do lots of the usual things, and they like those, but I can’t help feeling there are other [...]

Last week I had one of those ‘aha!’ moments, and as is often the case, it happened in a session with my business coach. (Yes, coaches need coaching too!) It was this phrase that did it: “We constantly try and find our purpose. Maybe instead we should CHOOSE our purpose and work towards that.” What do you think? Let me explain why this was an important thing for me to hear. An underpinning principle in personal development is that to become fulfilled, we ‘find’ our purpose. If we honour that discovery when it happens, we will go on to frame [...]

Every now and again, something I read sears straight through to my head and my heart. And so I find myself using this Guest Blogger slot to tell you about a very special book I’ve read this week. The book is called Into the Woods: When Love Isn’t Always A Fairy Tale and it’s by Julie Leoni, a Coach working here in the UK. The link to buy a copy is given at the end of this posting. I thought long and hard about bringing this to you in the lead up to Christmas, when the expected focus is on [...]

Other people wind me up! I was recently in a traffic jam with my husband and he was not a happy bunny!  We had been warned by the electric signs on the road that we were heading towards a hold-up about 30 miles further down the road, so we knew we were in for a wait – over an hour of delays, it turned out.  However, after 5 or 10 minutes the chuntering began “Look at that [idiot] over there”, “Oh no you don’t matey, you’re not getting in in front of me…” and so on.  I wasn’t wound up [...]

One of the things I really dislike about Facebook are those posts that seek to play on our emotions to ‘make’ us share the post.  You know the ones I mean – the “share if you care” or “I bet I won’t get even one like because I’ve been told I’m so ugly” kind of posts.  Now, I’m usually an easy-going, even tempered person; but my internal reaction to those posts is usually “Well, I obviously don’t care then” or something similar.  This is because my rebellious side kicks in – I don’t want to be manipulated into doing something [...]

I often wonder what drives our life decisions.  Are we making decisions that are logical, reasonable and based on our own goals that we have set for ourselves?  Or are we somehow trying to live up to someone else’s expectations, wishes or hopes for us?  Or living up to some idealistic picture of who we think we should be? Let me explain – I often think about two particular instances in my past that remind me of this question. The first was that of a manager of mine who was very driven and was seemingly never satisfied with where her [...]

As I run my own business I am selling things.  I sell my time, my knowledge, my expertise, my products. That means I engage in a sales process with my clients, moving them towards saying yes and buying what I have to sell. I’ve been on a variety of courses and read self-help books to aid my success in this area. One of the bits of information that I’ve picked up is that it can take up to 7 contacts to get to the yes, to actually make the sale. That might mean a phone call, followed by a brochure, [...]

I had a complete weekend off last week. Well I thought it was a weekend off. I’ve started reading through some family archives. I’ve got around 200 letters between my uncle and family members written between 1944 and 1947, together with lots of other info like his posting notices. He was in the Royal Naval Air Squadron. I’ve been meaning to do this for ages, I started cataloguing it all a while ago and haven’t got round to reading it until now. Now from this distance I can see how fascinating this story is. I was completely absorbed in the [...]

I was at a sales conference recently and we were talking about having fun at work. Sadly lots of us don’t do that. There are also very many people who don’t have fun out of work either. Having fun gives us a high and this makes the world a better place. You can’t feel negative after a good laugh. So my challenge to you today is to find a way to have fun today! Yes – today – don’t put off having fun until tomorrow. To get you started here is a no-cost list of 50 ways to get a [...]

Through assertiveness we develop contact with ourselves and with others. We become real human beings with real ideas, real differences…and real flaws. And we admit all of these things. We don’t try to become someone else’s mirror. We don’t try to suppress someone else’s uniqueness. We don’t try to pretend that we’re perfect. We become ourselves. We allow ourselves to be there. Randy Paterson Canadian Psychologist Author The Assertiveness Workbook  In different countries the leadership role of women and progressing gender equality continues to reflect much of the same struggles that women have been fighting for more than 125 years. [...]